Amazing Startups » Search

Swipe – access to prices and product reviews recommended by your friends and other people

admin — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 16:24:31 +0000

1) Who are the founders of the site? Where is the startup based?
Swipe is a 2 member task force – Omair (Development) and Binny (Product). While in college, Omair built a vertical search engine, a marketplace for coders and an American Idol platform. Each of these websites had thousands of users and Omair paid for most of his college from money generated from these sites. He later worked on mission critical payment mechanisms and security gateways at JP Morgan Chase.
Binny managed $14 million in lead generation revenue and products at QuinStreet. Before that he was doing Technology Investment Banking at Credit Suisse. He paid through all of his college by doing part-time and summer jobs selling kids clothes, doing market research and writing technology content. He earned his first money when he was 12 by selling stickers to his school mates. He started his first company when he was 18.

2) What makes this startup unique? What is the technology behind it?
Real time local shopping information helps you get an insight into others shopping habits and saves you time and money, by instantly discovering what others are buying around you. Currently real time local shopping information is not available and is walled in and contained between the shopper and a few close friends.
Swipe disrupts this structure by providing free, completely transparent, up to date shopping information in your area from people you trust. Swipe provides a fun medium through which you can easily share and access valuable real time local shopping information regarding stores, products, prices, deals and reviews.

3) What are the main characterstics of your startup?
Swipe is an easy way to tell your friends what you want to buy and find what they are buying. Swipe helps you shop street smart by giving you access to prices and product reviews recommended by your friends and other people whom you trust. You can share the inside scoop on countless everyday purchases such as food, clothes, gadgets, furniture, books, tickets, gyms, cars, holiday packages, games etc ,etc. Swipe starts social conversations around purchases and helps you discover prices, deals, opinions, locations, stores, products and shoppers – all this in a fun and competitive game environment.
Swipe recently launched at the TechCrunch Disrupt where we were one of the semi-finalists.
Swipe can be accessed at http://www.didyouswipe.com.

4) Is your startup free?
Yes

5) What is your business model?
Swipe intends to make Revenue through:
1. Lead Generation for local merchants
2. Affiliate Marketing
3. Mobile coupons
4. Loyalty Programs
5. Analytics Services

6) What is the main idea behind it? Why is your startup worth spending time?
We were active users of Foursquare. After using Foursquare for a few months, wining badges and mayorships we got bored of Foursquare. We felt that what location a person is at, is not very interesting. Rather, what is more interesting is what is the person doing once they get there. We then discovered that almost everyone checking in on foursquare is doing so at a place where they are spending money – restaurants, pubs, gas stations, clubs, shows, grocery, apparel shops etc.
We felt that we could get a lot of value if people shared what they were buying at a location and how much they were spending on it. It would help us discover new stores, products, deals, reviews and prices – shop street smart.

7) What are your plans for the future?
Swipe intends to match users spending patterns with customized offers and help them keep track of their loyalty points at various stores.

Who are your main competitors?
Blippy (http://blippy.com/) and Swipely(http://beta.swipely.com/).

Buddyfetch – search for IM/Social Networking/Dating users across multiple providers

admin — Thu, 01 May 2008 07:48:01 +0000

Craig J. Stadler from Oakland, CA has recently launched a project called Buddyfetch that few of you may already know.

BuddyFetch is a search engine that allows people to search for fellow IM, social networking, and Internet dating users. BuddyFetch searches multiple providers :

43 Things, AIM, BEBO, BlackPlanet, Blurty, BookOfMatches, Digg, Espin, Facebook, Flickr, Friendster, Google Talk, Greatest Journal, HI5, Hot or Not, ICQ Messenger, IMVU, Jabber Messenger, Jaiku, LavaPlace, LiveJournal, Meetup, MocoSpace, MSN Messenger, Myspace, NetLog, OkCupid, Paltalk, PlentyofFish, Skype, Stickam, StumbleUpon, Tagged, Tribe, Twitter, VOX, WAYN, Webdate, Xanga, YahooIM, YouTube, Zwinky.

BuddyFetch was created because there was no central directory that allowed searches for IM/Social Networking/Dating users across multiple providers, In conjunction with the fact that some directories would only allow you to search for screen names of IM users that were presently online. BuddyFetch also had vision to improve the quality of searches from the directories.

This startup is looking for an investor.

Xoost – share your search skills with your friends

admin — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:24:56 +0000

What is this startup about?

Do you Search the Web for your favourite topics and you would like to share your search skills with your friends? Xoost is the only place for you. With Xoost you will web search what you like most, your search stream will be continuously added to your profile, and you will socialize with other Xoosters on the basis of common search interests. Your searches and related websites will be automatically stored in your account and you will be able to access them anytime. In addition, you can share your Xoost searches with your friends on other networks such as Facebook or Twitter and you can tag or delete any search and related website as you like most. Xoost is simple, viral, scalable, enjoyable and is currently in private beta test: join the beta if you like the concept.

What makes this startup special?

Xoost shows you a new way of searching the web. With Xoost you will search what you like, you will connect with other Xoosters who are searching the same thing and you will contribute to the search relevance optimization for everybody. According to the traditional web search concept a Weblink is a piece of knowledge. In Xoost’s view a connection is the basic piece of knowledge and it is made by the unique combination of User+Search+Weblink. A Xoost connection is a much more powerful knowledge unit because it contains a relevant semantic factor. That makes Xoost unique.

Famhoo – a family friendly search engine

admin — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 19:57:23 +0000

Why Famhoo?

The answer is easy. Most families have brought computers into their homes – the very place on earth they spend their lives protecting. However, on every computer there is a pre-installed danger – the internet. As a default, most of these internet programs take your family to one of the major search engines. With these search engines your family is only a click away from learning how to make a bomb, talking to a predator, drugs, and millions of other things that you would never dream of exposing your family to. So what do most families do? They ignore it. Now there is a choice. A family friendly search engine – Famhoo? Everything good the internet has to offer, without the bad. Start now – make Famhoo? your default homepage.

Our Search Engine Methodology

Although our search engine methodology is confidential, we can tell you that we filter our results in a way that protects your family. We also sort the results in a way that we hope allows you to effectively find the most applicable websites you are searching for.

Why the name Famhoo?

“Fam” is short for family, and we want everyone to know that we are a family-friendly search engine — as well as what we believe is the best and most comprehensive search engine available on the internet for home and work.

“Hoo” is defined in the dictionary as “an exclamation of triumphant joy” — which is exactly what we believe you will feel when you get the search results you are looking for without all the trash and advertisements.